In the early 1920s, Haslund joined a group led by a Danish physician named
Carl Krebs, who aimed to establish a dairy farm in northern Mongolia, close to the Russian border. They travelled via China and Ulaanbaatar, and established themselves in what is today
Erdenebulgan sum in
Khövsgöl province. However, the dairy farm project failed due to Mongolia coming under stronger Soviet influence, and Haslund left Outer Mongolia in the mid-1920s. Fascinated by the Mongol way of life, Haslund remained in
Inner Mongolia for the following years, e.g. joining
Sven Hedin for the Sino-Swedish Scientific Expedition of the late 1920s. It was during this time he reportedly visited
Asralt Khairkhan, where he first encountered the local minority religion Pi Shashin. After the war, Haslund organised and led the Third Danish Expedition to
Central Asia, which lasted six years. A first team, consisting of anthropologists, botanists, geographers, and zoologists would work during 1948 and 1949 in
Afghanistan, from
Nuristan in the east to
Herat in the west, under his leadership. This would extend scientific knowledge to the south-east of the
Pamirs and
Iran explored respectively by
Ole Olufsen in 1896-7 and
C. G. Feilberg in 1936. Unfortunately, Haslund's death in 1948 left the Expedition leaderless and the expedition members finished their work as best they could. A new leader was appointed in 1950 but the rest of the plan for the expedition was never accomplished due to the political situation from 1950 onwards. ==See also==